WIREL Project Key Findings

The role of religion is currently a topic of considerable public interest in Vienna as well as across Europe. Over the course of the last half-century, Vienna has witnessed rapidly changing religious composition accompanied by consistently increasing religious diversity.

The various aspects of research conducted by WIREL facilitate the global assessment of both quantitative and qualitative aspects of religious diversity in Vienna. A short report – Religions in Vienna in the Past, Present and Future –summarises the research findings with the aim of making the trends, drivers, and socio-demographic consequences of the changing religious landscape of Vienna more accessible and understandable.

Selected Findings

The WIREL project studied different demographic and religious forces that have shaped Vienna’s population composition throughout the past as well as the implications that such forces hold for the present and the future. In this context, WIREL examines the process of secularisation, investigates changes in the levels of religiosity, and reveals spatial patterns of religious diversity.

Religious Change

Increasing religious diversity in Vienna, 1971–2011

The main changes in the religious composition of the population of Vienna are two-fold: First, the concurrent decrease of Catholics and increase of the unaffiliated and, second, increasing diversity driven by Muslims and Orthodox growth.

In 2011 1 % of the population 65 years
and older and 19 % of children younger
than 15 years were Muslims.

30 % of the population were estimated
to have no religious affiliation in 2011,
up from 10% in 1971.

Religiosity

Religiosity in Vienna and rest of Austria

In the past, the Viennese population was clearly less religious than that in other Austrian provinces. At present, more people throughout Austria belong to the rather fuzzy group of the inconsistently religious.

37 % was the share of the population in Vienna
that never prays in 2008, while it was21 % in other federal states of Austria.

Secularisation

Secularisation trend of Catholics in Vienna, 1971–2013

The share of Catholics in Vienna who were secularising increased until the late 1990s, but the trend indicates a decline.

10 % was the probability of leaving the
Catholic Church within 4 years if you did
not attend church during the period 2008–2012.

Migration

Impact of migration on the population size of Vienna, 1971–2013

Instead of 1.8 million, Vienna would have less than 1.2 million inhabitants in 2013 if no migration had taken place since 1971.

34 % was the (estimated) share of Catholics
among international immigrants in 2013.

19 % was the (estimated) share of
Muslim immigrants in 2013.

Fertility

Share of births in Vienna by religion of mother in 1984 and 2011

Increasing diversity in the cradle: Women who give birth today are much more religiously diverse than women in the 1980s.